LEGISLATIVE NOTEBOOK

By Celia Cohen
Grapevine Political Writer

The Delaware General Assembly is a very strange place
with lots of secrets and secret codes.

There was no better example than what happened
Tuesday, the first day of the 2007 session, when state
Rep. J. Benjamin Ewing, R-Bridgeville, took the floor. A
gracious elder statesman known as the "Gentle Ben" of
the legislature, Ewing praised state Rep. Peter C.
Schwartzkopf, D-Rehoboth, for donating a kidney last
month to a family friend.

It was touching. It was sincere. It was also not just
about the kidney. It was about the Joint Finance
Committee, too.

Schwartzkopf spent the last term on the committee,
the most coveted assignment in Legislative Hall because
of its budget-writing powers. It is a 12-member panel,
split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, senators
and representatives.

In backroom dealings, the Republican majority in the
House of Representatives has been threatening to kick
Schwartzkopf off the committee. It seems that
Schwartzkopf, who can be as generous with his lip as he
was with his kidney, and much more often, has not
hesitated to tell a Republican or two what he thinks of
them.

While Schwartzkopf favors the same sort of language
as Vice President Dick Cheney, certainly a good
Republican himself, the House Republican majority has
not been amused -- most notably state Rep. John C.
Atkins, R-Probation, even if being on the wrong side of
Atkins is a badge of honor these days.

If there was anyone who could advance Schwartzkopf's
cause to stay on the Joint Finance Committee, it was Ben
Ewing, and there he was, very conspicuously the first
representative to stand and commend Schwartzkopf. It was
a secret code message of support.

Ewing may be a Republican and Schwartzkopf a
Democrat, but there are more similarities than
differences between them. They are both Sussex Countians,
the strongest geographical bond in Delaware. They were
both state troopers, which is an even stronger bond,
even if they served a generation apart, with Ewing a
75-year-old retired lieutenant colonel and Schwartzkopf
a 51-year-old retired captain.

Still more important, there is no legislator closer
to Ewing than state Sen. Thurman G. Adams Jr., the
Democratic president pro tem, who is a fellow
Bridgeville resident. Adams was never a state trooper,
but he was the next best thing.

Before Delaware went to the Cabinet form of
government in the 1970s, the state's departments were
run by commissions, and Adams was on the Highway
Commission, which was in charge of the state police. He
had a gold badge and the power of arrest.

If Ewing was for Schwartzkopf, then Adams had to be
for Schwartzkopf. Word circulated that the House
Republicans might not want to throw Adams' fellow Sussex
County Democrat off the Joint Finance Committee, because
Adams had the power to retaliate by scrambling committee
assignments for the Senate's minority Republicans.

At the last reckoning, Schwartzkopf was expected to
keep his seat. Sometimes a speech about a kidney is a
speech about a kidney, but not in Legislative Hall.

# # #

In the U.S. House of Representatives,
where jubilant Democrats have climbed out of the
minority, the caucus has come up with something called
"100 Hours" -- celebrating their new-found clout by
pushing through bills on such matters as the minimum
wage rate and stem cell research in 100 hours of
legislating.

In the Delaware House of
Representatives, where nervous Republicans worry they
could fall into the minority in 2008, the caucus
concocted "Nine in Nine" -- trying to bolster themselves
by jump-starting nine initiatives on everything from
government salaries to a hated trash ban on lawn
clippings during nine legislative days in January.

The "Nine in Nine" plan was announced at
a press conference Wednesday, after the House
Republicans had decided to cancel its session Thursday.

State Rep. Wayne A. Smith, the
Republican majority leader, seemed flummoxed when asked
if the canceled session meant the "Nine in Nine" plan
was really a "Nine in Eight" plan -- "'Nine in Nine' had
such a darn good ring to it," he said -- but state Rep.
Deborah D. Hudson, a Greenville Republican, came to the
rescue.